Cat People (RKO, 1942) Simone Simon

This is an RKO Radio Picture youtu.be/0ADPSaybusM TrailerDirector Jacques Tourneur lept into the horror genre in magnificent
style with this moody and atmospheric tale of a woman who's convinced
she can turn into a cat. This marked the beginning of Tourneur's
collaboration with producer Val Lewton to create some of the best
horror films of the 1940s; a series that would take a huge bite out of
Universal's monopoly on the genre. Simone Simon was absolutely radiant
as the unstable, mysterious and feline Irena and this title card
depicts her to perfection. For anyone who's a fan of the Cat People movies, this actress enchants
you. Her Irena's the most sympathetic character, unusually comely and
appealing for someone playing the alleged monster of the title. Yet
still...some weird stuff is going on behind that kittenish doll's face
that's eerily off-kilter, a note that's just a mite tone-deaf in that
sing-song voice. "There is something subtly alarming about [her]
oddly mannered good-girl behavior," Roger Ebert says in his
review of Cat People.

Angelique has to master similar "Good-girl" behavior in
order to thrive in Collinsport without anyone discovering her secret
powers. Yet she should indeed remain "oddly mannered;" this
will remind us of the cray cray evil boiling away underneath the
pretty surface. However, like I said, Simon also commands a great deal
of sympathy as Irena, a sympathy vital to any portrayal of Angelique
that's as fully realized as Lara Parker's original performance. As
scintillating as Eva Green is in the new movie, she's almost too
flamboyantly nuts for us to believe a true aching heart exists there
within her broken frame. Simon's ethereal spookiness combined with the
human weight she brings to her characters would make Angelique the
complex villain you can't just dismiss as a woman scorned, just like
the witch Parker originated.Val Lewton produced nine amazing horror
films in the 1940’s that relied more on psychological terror that
cheap monsters the way Universal’s monster films did. He always hired
beautiful and talented actresses for his horror films and none more so
that Simone Simon, star of Cat People and Curse of the Cat People. In
these films she plays a troubled immigrant who fears that she will
turn into a wild beast if her emotions go awry. Simon’s beautifully
exotic looks and haunting performances makes her the most memorable of
Lewton’s ladies.synopsisHanded the exploitive title Cat People, RKO producer Val Lewton opted
for a thinking man's thriller--a psychological mood piece, more
reliant on suspense and suggestion than overt "scare stuff".
Simone Simon plays an enigmatic young fashion artist who is curiously
affected by the panther cage at the central park zoo. She falls in
love with handsome Kent Smith, but loses him to Jane Randolph. After a
chance confrontation with a bizarre stranger at a restaurant, Simon
becomes obsessed with the notion that she's a Cat Woman--a member of
an ancient Serbian tribe that metamorphoses into panthers whenever
aroused by jealousy. She begins stalking her rival Randolph,
terrifying the latter in the film's most memorable scene, set in an
indoor swimming pool at midnight. Psychiatrist Tom Conway scoffs at
the Cat Woman legend--until he recoils in horror after kissing Simon.
If the film's main set looks familiar, it is because it was built for
Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (Lewton later used the same
set for his The Seventh Victim). Cat People was remade by director
Paul Schrader in 1982.review

In just a three-year period in the 1940s, producer Val Lewton created
some of the most influential and intelligent psychological horror
films ever made, bringing a depth to the 'B' movie that would
influence any number of independent-minded Hollywood filmmakers in
later years. Lewton's first, and probably best, effort was Cat People.
It was directed by first-timer Jacques Tourneur, who went on to helm
another of Lewton's best films (I Walked With a Zombie), a classic
noir mystery (Out of the Past), and one of the great horror films of
all time (Curse of the Demon). But a Lewton film is a Lewton film, as
he had control over just about everything. The defining characteristic
of Cat People, as of most of his movies, is the absence of the
standard horror creature. Before Lewton, the payoff in a horror movie
typically came from exposing a ghastly beast who capitalized on the
technology of the makeup crew. Lewton instinctively understood that it
was scarier not to see the menace, and that keeping things in shadows
said something darker and more original about the characters. The
psycho-sexual complexities of the Simone Simon character in Cat People
are an ideal example of this method.Irena Reed, played by Simone Simon, believes herself to be from a race
of people who, when aroused, turn into cats. It's an intriguing
premise that's perfectly captured in this poster, as Simon is seen
lying down in a seductive manner, while a menacing black cat lurks in
the shadows. Costing just under $150,000, the film proved to be a huge
success, and helped save RKO from financial disaster in the 1940s.

This 1942 Val Lewton produced film is unique in that it set off the
cycle of Lewton movies at RKO, and also incidentally made (depending
on your data source) between $2 and $4 million dollars, effectively
stabilizing the company (or saving it from bankruptcy, if you believe
the claims by many of the Lewton film history boosters who exist). The
money also went to some degree in insuring Lewton's control over his
miniscule-budgeted unit where he made 8 more films. Though he couldn't
control the titles assigned him ("market-tested" was the
claim the executives gave for the often-times ridiculous
exploitation-tinged titles) Lewton did control the one thing where he
had supreme responsibility, the story and selection of director.Though other names are attached to the writing credits for his films,
he is known for making the final revisions and shaping (or reshaping)
the movie scripts to fit his own ideals for effective and quality
filmmanship (Lewton worked years for David Selznick as a story editor
and talent scout searching for Hollywood-appropriate stories: Lewton
is known to have disliked Selznick's giant hit Gone with the Wind, but
on the other hand was instrumental in bringing Hitchcock to the USA
for making Rebecca, among others).A new kind of horror filmWith Cat People, what was to be an effort at cashing in on the wake
left by Universal's big-earner The Wolf Man, Lewton (and fully
cooperative director Jacques Tourneur) minimized any Universal-style
shocks (which also saved on the special effects) and instead tried to
imply situations and the presence of the dangerous 'cat person'
(Simone Simon) through lighting and camera-work.Light-years ahead of the the 1930s style monster-movie methods, either
by design or accident, Lewton and Tourneur invented a wholly new way
of approaching a monster-movie subject that required the audience to
participate by the suggestive manipulations from abstractions put upon
the screen. The idea being that the viewer is going to 'see' things
that are not actually there if the hints are strong but subtle.Cast of Cat peopleThe cast of Cat People seem wooden the way program pictures from that
era were. Relatively stiff leading man Kent Smith is Oliver Reed, a
"good plain Americano" as he calls himself, a boat designer
who has a chance meeting with troubled fashion artist Irena Dubrovna
(Simon) and a gentle romance strikes up.They are soon married, but at the same time Irena's peasant old-world
fears about a village curse that will cause her to become a panther if
she is emotionally aroused (love, anger or anything else) becomes
uppermost in her mind, and she refuses to consummate the marriage. At
first the "good Americano" is all understanding and
patience, but it runs out once he starts spending time with the warm
sympathy of fellow-boat designer Alice Moore (played by Jane Randolph)
who has long harbored a secret infatuation for him.It is Kent Smith's acting style (along with Jane Randolph as the
'other woman') that frames French actress Simone Simon as the 'Cat
Woman.' Simone's exotic accent and more natural acting skill is that
much more effective when contrasted with the particularly placid
Smith.Although Simon plays the monster of the film, she is the one being
victimized, and Lewton and Tourneur (the script is credited to DeWitt
Bodeen) have turned the usual Hollywood adultery on it's head: it is
the foreigner who is being wronged by the average, well-meaning
American lovers.With the triangle established, Lewton and Tourneur put Irena through
her paces with episodes of jealousy, sorrow, despair and anger. Actor
Tom Conway is called in as psychiatrist Dr. Louis Judd, providing
George Sanders-like line delivery (and why not? He was Sander's
brother, and it would be hard to say which brother had complete
ownership of the cynical, suave style that characterizes both actors
work).This classic romantic triangle has Dr. Judd trying to crash it with
his frequent invitations to a refusing Irena to engage in emotional
therapy of a more physical nature, a quest that ends up getting him
killed when a vengeful Irena has finally taken shape as a lethal black
panther.Jane Randolph and Kent Smith are the next victims-to-be, but the
avenging Irena/panther finally leaves them unharmed when confronted by
Smith's pleading 'for God's sake, leave us alone'.With imaginative cinematography and a small cast that works the story
from beginning to end without generic horror-movie histrionics, it is
Simone Simon and the tricks of light and sound that that help give Cat
People it's special position as an innovative and high quality
low-budget film.